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How They Got Their Guns

A vast majority of guns used in 19 recent mass shootings were bought legally and with a federal background check. At least nine gunmen had criminal histories or documented mental health problems that did not prevent them from obtaining their weapons.Related Article

Feb. 14, 2018

Seventeen people were killed when Nikolas Cruz, 19, opened fire at his former high school in Parkland, Fla., with a Smith & Wesson M&P semiautomatic rifle.

February 2017

2017

Mr. Cruz was expelled from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School for disciplinary reasons. He was described as a “troubled kid” who enjoyed showing off his firearms and bragged about killing animals.

January 2018

A person close to Mr. Cruz warned the F.B.I. that Mr. Cruz had the potential to conduct a school shooting and a “desire to kill people, erratic behavior, and disturbing social media posts.” The F.B.I. said it failed to act on the tip.

Feb. 14, 2018

Mr. Cruz killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Nov. 5, 2017

A gunman identified as Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, opened fire at a Sunday service in a rural Texas church, killing at least 26 people. The authorities said Mr. Kelley used a Ruger AR-15 variant, a knockoff of the standard service rifle carried by the American military.

2012

Mr. Kelley, who was in the Air Force, was convicted of assaulting his wife and breaking his infant stepson’s skull. An airman first class, he was sentenced to 12 months’ confinement and a reduction to the lowest possible rank, E-1.

2014

Mr. Kelley received a “bad conduct” discharge from the Air Force.

2016 - 2017

Mr. Kelley purchased two firearms — one in 2016 and one in 2017 — from two Academy Sports & Outdoors stores in San Antonio. He passed a federal background check in both cases, according to a statement released by the store.

Nov. 5, 2017

Twenty-six people were killed and at least 20 more were wounded at the church shooting in Sutherland Springs. Mr. Kelley was later found dead in his vehicle. The police recovered two additional handguns from the car.

Nov. 6, 2017

The Air Force admitted that it had failed to enter Mr. Kelley’s domestic violence conviction into federal databases, which could have blocked him from buying the rifle he used in the massacre.

Oct. 1, 2017

Fifty-eight people were killed and more than 500 were wounded when Stephen Paddock, from a perch high in a hotel, opened fire onto a crowd of concertgoers at an outdoor music festival in Las Vegas. Authorities recovered an arsenal of weapons — at least 23 from his hotel room — including AR-15-style rifles.

Since 1982

Mr. Paddock started buying firearms in 1982, said Jill Snyder, a special agent in charge at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Within a year of the shooting

Mr. Paddock legally purchased 33 firearms from Oct. 2016 to Sept. 2017, Ms. Snyder said. Most of those guns were rifles. Such purchases do not prompt reports to the bureau because there is no federal law requiring a seller to alert the bureau when a person buys multiple rifles.

Oct. 1

Fifty-eight people were killed when Mr. Paddock fired onto the crowd of more than 22,000 from his hotel room at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. He used at least one semiautomatic rifle modified to fire like an automatic weapon by attaching a “bump stock,” not shown above.

After the shooting

Authorities retrieved 47 guns from the hotel room and Mr. Paddock’s homes in Mesquite and Verdi, Nev. The bureau found Mr. Paddock purchased most of the guns in Nevada, Utah, California and Texas. Twelve of the rifles recovered from the hotel were each outfitted with a bump stock.

June 12, 2016

Forty-nine people were killed and 53 wounded when Omar Mateen opened fire at a crowded gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. He used two guns: a Sig Sauer AR-15-style assault rifle and a Glock handgun.

2013

The F.B.I. learned that Mr. Mateen had made comments to co-workers alleging possible terrorist ties, an official said. The next year, the F.B.I. investigated him again for possible ties to an American who went to Syria to fight for an extremist group, but authorities concluded that he “did not constitute a substantive threat at that time.”

A few days before the shooting

Mr. Mateen legally bought two guns, a federal official said. “He is not a prohibited person, so he can legally walk into a gun dealership and acquire and purchase firearms,” said Trevor Velinor, an agent at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

June 12, 2016

Forty-nine people were killed and 53 more were wounded in the crowded nightclub. Mr. Mateen was killed inside the club by the police.

Dec. 2, 2015

Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, husband and wife, killed 14 people at a holiday office party in San Bernardino, Calif. Four guns were recovered: a Smith & Wesson M&P assault rifle, a DPMS Panther Arms assault rifle, a Smith & Wesson handgun and a Llama handgun.

Before the shooting

“We believe that both subjects were radicalized and for quite some time,” said David Bowdich, the F.B.I. assistant director. The attackers are not known to have had previous contact with law enforcement.

Between 2007 and 2012

Mr. Farook bought the two handguns legally in California, federal officials said. The guns were purchased at Annie’s Get Your Gun, a gun store in Corona, Calif., The Los Angeles Times reported.

Between 2007 and 2012

Enrique Marquez, a former neighbor of Mr. Farook’s family, bought the two assault rifles in California, officials said. Mr. Marquez was later charged with lying about the rifle purchases and supplying the assault weapons to the attackers.

Dec. 2, 2015

The couple killed 14 people at a holiday party. Moments before the attack began, Ms. Malik posted an oath of allegiance to the Islamic State on Facebook.

Oct. 1, 2015

Christopher Harper-Mercer, 26, killed nine people at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, where he was a student. He was armed with six guns, including a Glock pistol, a Smith & Wesson pistol, a Taurus pistol and a Del-Ton assault rifle, according to The Associated Press.

2008

Mr. Harper-Mercer was in the Army for one month, but was discharged before completing basic training.

2009

He graduated from the Switzer Learning Center in Torrance, Calif., which teaches students with learning disabilities and emotional issues.

Before shooting

In all, Mr. Harper-Mercer owned 14 firearms, all of which were bought legally through a federally licensed firearms dealer, a federal official said. Some were bought by Mr. Harper-Mercer, and some by members of his family.

Oct. 1, 2015

He killed nine people in Roseburg, Ore.

Aug. 26, 2015

Vester Lee Flanagan II, 41, shot and killed a Roanoke, Va., television reporter and a cameraman with a Glock handgun while they were reporting a story live.

July 23, 2015

Using a .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol bought from a pawnshop, John R. Houser killed two people and wounded nine others at a movie theater in Lafayette, La.

2006

Mr. Houser was denied a state-issued concealed weapons permit because he was accused of domestic violence and soliciting arson.

2008

A judge ordered him sent to a psychiatric hospital.

2014

Mr. Houser bought the weapon in Alabama. Officials said it had been purchased legally, though he had been denied a concealed weapons permit earlier, and despite concerns among family members that he was violent and mentally ill.

July 23, 2015

He killed two people in Lafayette.

June 17, 2015

Dylann Roof, 21, killed nine people with a .45-caliber Glock pistol at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C.

February 2015

Mr. Roof was charged with a misdemeanor for possessing Suboxone, a prescription drug frequently sold in illegal street transactions.

April 2015

He purchased a gun from a store in West Columbia, S.C. Mr. Roof should have been barred from buying a gun because he had admitted to possessing drugs, but the F.B.I. examiner conducting the required background check failed to obtain the police report from the February incident.

June 17, 2015

Mr. Roof joined a Bible study group at Emanuel A.M.E. Church and opened fire with the gun he bought in April.

Oct. 24, 2014

Jaylen Ray Fryberg, 15, used his father’s Beretta pistol to shoot and kill four students in his high school’s cafeteria in Marysville, Wash.

2002

Raymond Lee Fryberg Jr., Jaylen’s father, was the subject of a permanent domestic violence protection order, which should have been entered into the federal criminal background database.

2013

Mr. Fryberg applied to buy the Beretta from a gun shop on the Indian reservation where he lived with Jaylen. A background check failed to come up with the protection order because it was never entered into the system.

Oct. 24, 2014

Jaylen Fryberg texted five of his fellow students to come to the cafeteria, where he opened fire.

April 2, 2014

Specialist Ivan Antonio Lopez opened fire at Fort Hood with a Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol, killing three people and wounding 16 others.

2011

Specialist Lopez came back from a four-month deployment to Iraq and told his superiors that he had suffered a traumatic head injury there. Military officials said he had never seen combat and was being evaluated for possible post-traumatic stress disorder.

March 2014

Specialist Lopez had seen a military psychiatrist as recently as the month before the shooting. He was being treated for depression and anxiety, and had been prescribed Ambien to help him sleep.

March 1, 2014

Mr. Lopez legally bought his gun at the same shop where Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army major, had bought at least one of the weapons used in a 2009 mass shooting on the base that killed 13 people.

April 2, 2014

Around 4 p.m., Mr. Lopez started firing on soldiers.

Sept. 16, 2013

Aaron Alexis, 34, used a Remington shotgun to kill 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard.

2011

Mr. Alexis was given an honorable discharge after showing what Navy officials called a “pattern of misbehavior” during four years as a reservist.

A month before the shooting

He twice sought treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs for psychiatric issues. He told police in Rhode Island that people were pursuing him and sending vibrations through the walls of his hotel.

Sept. 2013

He was stopped from buying an assault rifle at a Virginia gun store, but was allowed to buy a shotgun. He passed local and state background checks.

Sept. 16, 2013

He killed 12 people at the Navy Yard.

Dec. 14, 2012

Adam Lanza, 20, shot and killed his mother in their home, then killed 26 people, mostly children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., using a Bushmaster XM-15 rifle and a .22-caliber Savage Mark II rifle.

2009

Mr. Lanza graduated from high school. Some classmates said he had been bullied in high school. He struggled with a developmental disorder and was described as acutely shy, not known to have close friends.

After high school

He was “completely untreated in the years before the shooting” for psychiatric and physical ailments like anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder, a state report found.

Before the shooting

His mother, Nancy Lanza, a gun enthusiast, legally obtained and registered a large collection of weapons and would often take her sons to shooting ranges.

Dec. 14, 2012

Mr. Lanza used his mother’s guns to kill her and 26 others.

Aug. 5, 2012

Wade M. Page, 40, killed six people with a Springfield Armory semiautomatic handgun when he opened fire in the lobby of a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., as congregants arrived for Sunday services.

Jared L. Loughner, 22, killed six people with a Glock handgun in a supermarket parking lot in Tucson, Ariz., at an event for Gabrielle Giffords, who was a Democratic representative from Arizona.

2007

Mr. Loughner was arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia, but the charges were dropped. The next year, he failed a drug test when trying to enlist in the Army. Neither incident barred him from buying a gun.

Oct. 2010

He was forced to withdraw from community college because of campus officials’ fears about the safety of the staff and students, his parents later said. The incident would not have shown up on a background check.

Nov. 30, 2010

He passed a background check and bought the handgun at a store in Tucson, Ariz.

Jan. 8, 2011

He killed six people in Tucson.

Nov. 5, 2009

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, an Army psychiatrist facing deployment to Afghanistan, opened fire inside a medical processing building at Fort Hood in central Texas, killing 13 people and wounding 43 others. He was armed with an FN Herstal pistol.

Dec. 2008-June 2009

Intelligence agencies intercepted 10 to 20 messages between Mr. Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric in Yemen known for his incendiary anti-American teachings.

June 2009

Federal authorities dropped an inquiry about the messages after deciding that they did not suggest any threat of violence.

July 31, 2009

Mr. Hasan bought the pistol legally at a popular weapons store in Killeen, Tex., paying more than $1,100.

Nov. 5, 2009

He shot and killed 13 people at Ford Hood.

April 3, 2009

Jiverly Wong, 41, fired at least 98 shots from two handguns, a Beretta 92 FS 9-millimeter pistol and a Beretta PX4 Storm pistol, inside a civic association in Binghamton, N.Y., where he had taken an English class. He killed 13 former classmates and association employees.

Before the shooting

Mr. Wong had been arrested, cited or had some minor contact with the police at least five times since 1990, but details about the cases remain unclear. At the time of the shootings, he was not a subject in any investigation, nor did he have a documented mental health issue.

March 2008

Mr. Wong bought the first gun, the Beretta 92, at a store in Johnson City, N.Y. He passed a background check.

March 2009

Mr. Wong bought the second gun from the same store, but his background check was not approved immediately. He received the gun under a federal rule that allows a gun to be sold if the background check system does not return a decision in three business days.

April 3, 2009

He killed 13 people in Binghamton.

Note: Information on the precise version or year of manufacture of each gun was not always available, so a version of the model or a similar one is shown. The handguns used by Christopher Harper-Mercer are omitted because the models have not been released. The guns shown for Adam Lanza do not include the gun he used to shoot himself.